Over grensen etter kunnskap? Evaluering av 13 prosjekter innenfor satsingsområdet kompetanse og utdanning finansiert over Barentsprogrammet ('Across the Border for Knowledge? Evaluation of 13 Projects from the Field of Education and Competence')

Anne-Kristin Jørgensen and Geir Hønneland

FNI Report 1/2002. Lysaker, FNI, 2002, 66 p. In Norwegian.

The report is an evaluation of a selection of education and competence-related projects financed over the Barents Programme. The implementation of the evaluated projects can largely be characterised as successful. Problems were mainly encountered in the initial phase of the projects are solved relatively quickly. A few of the projects suffer from a certain lack of interest among Russian project co-ordinators and/or participants. Nevertheless, the main impression is one of a group of well-founded and relevant projects which – led by enthusiastic and well-qualified project leaders - have achieved their goals of contributing to an increase in contacts across the East-West divide of the European North. The projects have been somewhat less successful in contributing to the development of a functional Barents Region. Some of the exchange programmes suffer from the fact that few of the Russian students return to Russia after studies in Norway. The demand in Russia for candidates with a Nowegian education is also varying. The courses for Russian journalists in Norway seem to have had too high ambitions in relation to what can be achieved in terms of 'democratisation' on the Russian side, and to some extent also suffer from attempts at teaching the Russians to do things 'in our way'.